


A Quarter After One

by lindsey_grissom



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And I wonder if I ever cross your mind.</i>  Kara, Lee, memories and the aftermath of a night of regrets.  Set during the months on New Caprica, pre-Cylon arrival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quarter After One

**Author's Note:**

> A challenge fic written in exchange for another, the only rule that it had to be based upon the Lady Antebellum song _Need You Now_. Free choice on fandom and pairing and this is what I came up with. Anyone that knows my work will know how unusual this pairing is for me...no Laura! (Set a few months after the Ground Breaking on New Caprica).

__

And I wonder if I ever cross your mind  
For me it happens all the time

 

 **1.** _Picture perfect memories scattered all around the floor._

Kara jumped at the loud cheer from outside the tent. It sounded like the Pyramid game was in full swing. She knew they would all wonder why she wasn’t cheering on her husband from the sidelines, or subbing in for the last ten minutes; all the time her knee would let her have.

Another cheer rent the air, a gust of wind carrying it through the tent flap to brush across the papers spread out in front of her. Kara gripped harder at her cup of the Chief’s latest gut rot and placed a gentle hand down on a photograph as it threatened to lift from the floor. The wind died down, the flap closing and leaving her in the relative silence of the tent.

Peeling her hand back she ran a single finger across the image of her own face. She hardly recognised herself anymore. Placing the cup on the ground by her knee, she brought her free hand up to her face, mirroring the movements of her finger on the picture. There were the same cheek bones, the smooth line of her chin, the brush of her eyelashes as she covered her eyes and blinked against her palm. She swallowed and drew her hand back to trace across her mouth. Her fingers danced along her lips as she drew their shape, taking the lines from the photograph and scribing them onto her face. She paused, her indrawn breath shaky as her fingers rose to the corner of her mouth, reaching points far above her lips.

Tentatively she moved the muscles in her face, forcing them into a copy of the smile she had before her. Her lips barely brushed the pads of her fingertips. She sobbed out a breath, dropping her hand to her side and wrapping the arm around her waist. Pinching the corner of the photograph between her thumb and forefinger, she brought it up and looked at it in its entirety. Her attention flickered between her own eyes and the bright blue of the man whose arm was wrapped around her.

Kara shivered and tightened her grip on herself. Somewhere, a dog barked.

It was the only picture she had of them. Taken in those first few months when there had been real hope left in the Fleet, even after all the loss. She had long since sacrificed the dress and from what she had last seen of him, she knew that he rarely stepped out of his new uniform now. She wondered briefly what had become of the soft grey but pushed the thought aside, her attention caught by the smile plastered across his face. The mirror to the one on her own beside it.

Something caught in her throat and she unwrapped her arm to bring the half-empty cup to her mouth to swallow it down. Her hand shook and she slammed the cup back onto the floor angrily, glaring at her hand and clenching it tightly into a fist. How dare her body betray her now. She was so focused on the sudden anger she failed to notice how her other hand clenched in parallel until the sound of paper crumpling brought her back with a jolt.

She stared at the creased and scrunched photograph with something like horror and felt a tide of panic surge up inside her. No, no, she hadn’t just done that. Not to that picture, no. She shook her head frantically and hurriedly laid the picture down, brushing her hands across it over and over until it almost lay flat again, creases cross-cutting the right hand corner.

A tear drop landed on the abused photograph and Kara flicked her thumb across it, turning her head away to stop the rest from falling. She bit her lip and clenched her eyes shut tight. _Gods._ Outside, a chant started up and Kara concentrated on it, clinging to the sound in an effort to pull back her control. Eventually the dull roar rose in volume and she picked out the word, one over and over: ‘Sam’.

Her lips turned up into a bitter smile and she hiccuped on another sob. Her eyes shot back to the picture and she looked into his; something inside pressed hard against her ribs, aching to be released. She shifted against the floor, pulling her legs beneath her. Her knee brushed against a sheet of note paper and she dropped her eyes to follow the words written there.

 _Kara,_ it read, his handwriting standing out black and spiked against the white paper. _I’m in love with Kara Thrace._

The tent flap separated again and a ray of rare sunlight caught the metal on her finger, glinting into shards of colour across the tent floor.

She wondered if he remembered writing it. If he remembered slipping it into her jacket pocket before they fell asleep, bared to the sky and wrapped around each other. Got to make it real, he had said, his breath hot against her cheek, gotta have it written down. Kara wrapped her arms around her stomach and dropped her body forward until her forehead touched her knees. Her tears were silent, soaking through to her skin.

Outside the crowd cheered again and a dog barked.

 

 **2.** _Can’t stop looking at the door, wishing you'd come sweeping in the way you did before._

Lee paced his way behind the table, the low lights in the CIC barely bright enough to stop him walking into an abandoned chair. He scowled at the empty station and let his eyes wander aimlessly around the room. There was the minimum number of crew required to keep the _Pegasus_ functioning and nothing more. The ship felt gutted and empty without excess crew and the few civilians that he had become used to seeing in the corridors.

An alarm sounded and Lee flew across to the screens. Finding nothing there of interest he registered the arrival of more people and realised with irrational anger that it was Shift Change. He huffed out air through gritted teeth and turned on his heel storming from the CIC without acknowledging anyone he passed.

The route back to his quarters was deserted and the echo of his shoes against the floor only raised his ire. Pausing between levels he had a moment of longing for the familiar maze of _Galactica_ and considered heading for the hanger-bay and taking a raptor over to his Father’s ship. Or down to the planet below.

With a growl, Lee shook off the thought and continued on his way. But it followed him and even as he tried not to think on it further, her face rose up in his mind and he stopped dead. No, he wasn’t going to do that, not again.

His quarters were empty when he arrived and he poured himself a glass of ambrosia, hating the relief he felt at the silent homecoming. It was wrong, he knew that, but no matter how he tried, he still hadn’t adjusted to married life. To waking up beside Dee, to coming _home_ to her at the end of every shift. Talking to her and sharing the stories of his days with her. It felt false, fake, something out of a catalogue that he had simply ordered up. He played his role of husband well outside, where people could see and judge. At first, he had thrown himself into the role; doting on her and making sure she knew, without a hint of doubt, that she was his first choice. And all the time, he had known that...with a groan he threw himself back onto the couch, leaning his head against the back and staring up at the ceiling. Even now he couldn’t admit to himself what he had done.

He brought the glass up to his lips and drained it without lifting his head. A few drops spilt from the rim and trailed sticky and cold down his chin and into the neck of his uniform. He didn’t bother to wipe them away, uncaring that she would smell the drink on his clothes. He found it hard to draw up the appropriate dread for the lecture he would receive if that happened again.

Resting the empty glass on the cushion beside him, he scrubbed at his eyes with both hands, he saw a flash of hazel and blonde and pressed his palms hard into his eyes until all he could see were white bursts of light. His wedding ring felt cold against the heat of his eyelids and he hissed, frustrated. Everything was such a mess.

Pulling himself up, he moved the glass to the coffee table before slumping forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands still covering his eyes. Things should have gotten easier. Four months since he had last seen her and he could still smell the fresh air and river water in her hair. Could still feel the press of her lips against his own, the clasp of her fingers as she had held him close. Four months and he could still see the look on her face as he told the night how he really felt, as he screamed her name into the darkness and collapsed beside her, laughing so hard his sides hurt.

He didn’t think he would ever forget the way her voice had tripped over his name and her declaration, or how she had shaken her head when he wrote it down and slid it into her clothes. He wondered if she had remembered it that morning. If she had known it had been there when she snuck off to marry her Pyramid player or if she had found it later, after she had stripped her clothes again and the paper had rustled as she tossed them to the floor.

Lee felt his eyes burn and dug his fingers into his scalp, hooking his thumbs into his hair and pulling sharply. He wanted to hate her. Gods, he wished that he hated her. Marrying Dee would still have been a mistake; there was no way that he could ever justify or explain his actions as anything but a reaction to the revelations of that morning. But if he could just hate her...

He sighed, the sound choking off into a single dry sob.

Footsteps sounded just outside the hatch and he straightened, his head snapping around as it swung open and hit the wall. The brief flash of strangled hope died when he caught sight of the dark hair of his wife. He turned away, facing the far wall. He had known who it would be. He would have been alerted to any traffic from the planet, he would have heard long before she had reached his door.

Dee dropped a stack of files onto the coffee table and leant over to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. She moved to the Head and he watched her go. _I love Lee Adama._ The _Pegasus_ was quiet and Lee twirled his ring around his finger.

 

 __

Guess I'd rather hurt than feel nothin' at all  
And I don't know how I can do without;  
I just need you now.

 _  
**End.**   
_


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